Fairburn Ings.

 H&S duties and a meeting took me to Fairburn Ings today. After the meeting I went to the Pickup Hide.

It was fairly quiet at the feeders when I first arrived, but it suddenly became busy. The steady stream of chaffinches, blue and great tits was interrupted by the arrival of a grey squirrel.

It was able to squeeze its head inside the cage protecting the food and bite off a piece of fat ball.

It then climbed onto the top of the food cage and started to eat the piece of fat ball. Either the effort was too great, or it did not like the fat ball, because it soon moved away. This left the area open for another visitor

This male great spotted woodpecker arrived, pecked at the fat balls through the cage and then flew to this tree trunk, where it started pecking at the trunk. It did not stay long, did it not like the fat balls?

No sooner had the woodpecker flown off, when a family of long tailed tits arrived.

They were very active, hardly staying still for longer than a few seconds. They flew off and the tits and chaffinches had the food to themselves again. A dunnock and a moorhen were on the ground, picking up some bits of food. I then walked to the kingfisher screen. On the way I heard then saw, fieldfares and redwings and a charm of goldfinches with a few siskins feeding on the alders.

No sign of a kingfisher, and after a few words with Vince about the hen harriers at Blacktoft, I returned to my car. As I drove through the village, I saw an empty parking space near the horse trough. Since the new housing development was completed, I have rarely seen a place to park, so decided to park up and walk along the cut.

It had started to rain by now and the light was not brilliant. I managed to see my first goldeneye of this winter along with lots of tufted ducks and several male pochard.

In the same area was a great crested grebe

a grey heron was on the lookout for its tea

As I walked along the path, I disturbed a male goosander and then noticed a goldcrest flitting about in one of the bushes, tick number 211 for this year.

From the hide I could see lots of mute swans and ducks. The shovelers were gathered together

I presumed that they were all disturbing the water and feeding on the vegetation that they had loosened.